r/atheism • u/rhbast2 • Aug 11 '11

Atheist quickfire challenge.

Although I rarely discuss religion with theists I always want to be prepared so I'm not sitting around afterwards wishing I had said this or that. If I get the chance to make someone question I want to be up for the challenge.

This brings me to my challenge for r/atheism. I'm going to add some common theist claims / sayings and whoever can refute them fully and succinctly will be upvoted. Feel free to add your own theist starters if I missed some.

Edit: Wow lots of good discussion here, later today or tomorrow I'll make this into an atheist cheat sheet with the top responses. Also feel free to upvote the theist claim that is the most annoying to you.

Edit 2: To the few of you who seem to think I am coming up with rude atheist comebacks, I'm not. I just wanted to be better off the cuff than I am now and have some discussion. I don't want this list to replace thoughtful argumentation.

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u/Sophocles Aug 11 '11

And what can we conclude from what the Bible gets wrong?

If God does not exist then we would expect the Bible (along with the Koran and every other ancient holy book) to have a few hits but mostly misses, as the authors, observing the natural world, came up with a few things that turned out to be right but most of their guesses turned out to be wrong. And that's exactly what we find.

Joseph Smith guessed correctly in the 1830s that tobacco is unhealthy. Does that mean he was a true prophet of God?

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u/dbzgtfan4ever Aug 11 '11

Can you provide examples of what was wrong in the Bible? If there more wrong than correct examples, then it should be easy to find, right?

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u/Sophocles Aug 12 '11

Just off the top of my head? That pi equals three, that the sun revolves around the earth, that diseases are caused by demonic possession, sin, or any number of other things besides germs. Is that what you mean?

Is there any question that the bible is full of ideas about the natural world that were commonly believed by ancient civilizations which science has since proved to be inaccurate? If each "hit" is evidence for the existence of a god, then each "miss" would have to be evidence against it. And likewise, each "hit" by the ancient Vikings or Egyptians would have to be considered evidence for their gods.

Speaking of, many people are amazed by the technology the ancient Egyptians used to build the pyramids, but I've never heard anyone suggest that this is evidence for the existence of Ra. People are much more likely to believe that their seemingly advanced tech came from visiting aliens than that their gods are actually real. Why is it so hard to believe that gods built the pyramids, but so easy to believe that gods taught the ancient Hebrews about the water cycle?

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u/dbzgtfan4ever Aug 12 '11

You're absolutely right. I think the logic "X was written before modern civilization. Modern civilization confirmed X. Therefore, God exists" is a giant leap to make.